[December, 19 2009]NOW YOU CAN WATCH THE WHOLE EVENT IN VIDEO, IN NEWS SECTION. THE FORUM'S REPORT IS ALREADY UNDER DEVELOPMENT.
Seville/Geneva: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals and implementing the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness are best addressed through coordinated action at the local and regional levels through a new multilateralism involving a wide range of stakeholders, concluded delegates at a two-day global symposium in Seville on Friday.
More than 300 delegates from 30 countries convened in the Andalucían capital to share experiences related to four years of implementing UNDP’s innovative approach to local development through the ART initiative. ART is an acronym for Articulation of Territorial and Thematic Networks of Cooperation and Human Development. The initiative supports national and local governments to implement their decentralization policies through a programming and operational framework that harmonizes the work of a wide range of actors, who often work through separate, and fragmented approaches based on their own priorities, rather than the priorities of the local communities.
“All too often development planning happens in the national and donor capitals, far away from people whom it is intended to benefit,” said ART UNDP International Coordinator Giovanni Camilleri. “ART strives to empower local and regional authorities to contribute to their own development planning and to work with national authorities to overcome their MDG challenges.”
Nelson Toca, undersecretary of state for planning from the Dominican Republic, said the ART approach has contributed enormously to the coordination of development in his country. “Through this multilateral framework we were better able to leverage the specific comparative advantages of each development partner,” he said. “This has resulted in a more comprehensive approach that is better able to meet the needs and priorities of our people.”
ART is currently operational in 18 countries, primarily in Latin America, with a few countries each in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Because it is both a programme and a network, the ART initiative belongs to its stakeholders, said Rosa Elcarte, Director of Sectorial and Multilateral Co-operation at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation. Spain is largest of the bilateral partners supporting the initiative, along with Belgium, Canada, Greece, Italy, Monaco and Sweden. “Though its beginnings were in UNDP; it does not belong specifically to UNDP,” she said. “ART belongs ultimately to the communities, to the local governments, to the public and private sectors in the regions where it is being implemented.”
The Seville Summit highlighted ten specific advances of the ART initiative to date, including its success in building the capacity of regional authorities to assess their needs, to articulate them in a development strategy, and to then, in a coordinated manner with national government, approach specific donors to contribute to solutions in line with each one’s comparative advantage. In this way, many central government planning authorities view the approach as adding tremendous value to their work by linking in the priorities of the local and regional authorities, thus helping them put together a coordinated national strategy.
Another success is seen in the experience of transferring experiences and lessons from one developing country to another. The success in linking local and regional governments from the north and the south , in order to promote sharing of knowledge and innovation for local development was also highlighted.
Though the initiative began in the Geneva-based UNDP Hub for Innovative Partnerships, discussions are now underway to mainstream the approach into the organization’s global strategy and to integrate its thematic framework into UNDP programming at the regional and global levels. In addition, a proposal was presented in Seville to create a global ART advisory board with representatives from different development partners, civil society, local and national governments and the private sector. “By reflecting the multistakeholder approach of the Art initiative,” said Camilleri, “the global board will be able to leverage lessons from throughout the programme and provide unique specific insights into how to coordinate and implement the best possible solutions to local development challenges.”